


the secret lives of teenage bedrooms

by tigrrmilk



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Teenage confusion, just because ur emo doesn't mean everything isn't Extremely Bad, teenage bedrooms, teenage feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 13:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9899213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrrmilk/pseuds/tigrrmilk
Summary: Well, he’s still a kid. Don’t forget that.Or: Jughead Jones has had a lot of bedrooms. Doesn't mean he won't miss this one.





	

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: v brief ref to miss grundy's abuse of archie.

 

That's just teenage talk  
I don't think the past is better, better  
Just cause it's cased in glass  
Protecting us from our now and later

**st vincent, _teenage talk_**

 

 

 

 

 

1.

Lindsay doesn’t make it out to the drive-in much anymore - she’s not so much a lazy boss as benignly neglectful, she thinks, and besides she’s got her hands full with her old dad, her old dog, and attending physical therapy for her busted (but not _that_ old) knee. She can’t even make it out much in its last week, although Jughead sends her some flyers for the last film he’s putting on. It’s a whole thing. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. She smiles, even though she remembers hating it when she watched it -- maybe that was two decades ago now -- on crackling VHS.

She didn’t know they even had a print of it at the Twilight. But, well. Jughead has his secrets, and so does the drive-in’s battered old projection booth that nobody else has so much as stepped foot in for the past two years.

Until today.

 

2.

Lindsay makes Fred help her cart out all the reels of film that they can find into the back of her truck. She’s got a buyer out in Midvale who’s a real cinephile -- or fancies himself one, anyway. And she can’t just leave them all to be demolished with the rest of the place. Film burns. It burns _easy_.

“Damn,” she says, sitting down hard on the bed she’s pretending isn’t there as she fails at dismantling the projector.

“You okay up there?” she hears Fred call, although she’s forbidden him from coming up here himself. _You’ll get in the way with your shoulders and your big old hands_.

“Fine,” she says, annoyed, then gets back to work. _Damn_. It’s been years since -- well. She’d shown Jughead how to operate it all, hadn’t see? She’d shown him how it all worked? So why is she so slow at this?  
  
Maybe, like the good kid himself, she’s reluctant to see it all go. But Fred’s waiting outside, with his other good men nearby and some less-good men lurking. She blows on her fingers for luck and gets back to work.

 

3.

What is there? A plastic bottle, half-opaque -- is it a milk bottle? -- carefully washed out and used for water? Well, everyone gets thirsty at work. There’s a stove. A splitter that can’t be healthy for this place’s electricity, and a stove plugged into it that looks like it’s older than Lindsay herself. Maybe older than her _dad_. There’s the camp bed. A battered radio -- that used to be mine, she thinks. She listened to it sometimes, on low, with her ear pressed close, when she was having to show some shitty flick that she hated for the fourth Sunday that summer.

There’s the bed, which she’s sitting on. It’s a camp bed. It’s clearly been slept on to within an inch of its sad, flimsy life. It’s still hanging on, but there’s no saving it. It goes out with the rest. Blankets too. They feel rough and thin beneath her hands. There are no books left behind... There’s a poster for a Mexican horror film that she remembers showing sometimes at horror marathons in the mid ‘90s. She’d be surprised if Jughead had ever seen it. Way too young for that.

She’s not surprised. Not by the bed. Not by the _bedroom_. It’s not like the pay was enough for anything else, and she’s met his dad. She knows his dad pretty well, she thinks, although it’s not like they’ve ever _talked_.

She saves the poster, although she has to fold it twice to slip it in with one of the reels of film. It’s REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, the last picture shown here. Riverdale isn’t big enough for a multiplex, or even a one or two-screen theatre with enough roof for all the seats; she figures folks will just make do with Netflix on whatever screen they’ve got.

 

4.

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” she says, the canister clutched under her free arm. The last one. She gestures at the truck with her crutch. “I’d offer you a lift, but I guess you’ve got to stay to tear her down.” Also he’s got his own fucking truck, but it’s not polite to say that. She’s a grown-up, even if she’s not going to be anyone’s boss anymore.

“We’re already a week behind schedule,” Fred says, as if it’s an apology. She guesses it’s as close as anyone can get. Hell, it’s not like she owned the place. What the hell was she? The manager. What have they got to apologise for? The town have paid her off, and she’s got the rest of her part-time work and her weed basement that’s a bit too pathetic for anyone to care about. It’s pretty much okay.

“You say hi to that kid next time you see him,” Lindsay says, and then she drives away.

Both she and Fred know she doesn’t mean Archie. Good kid; no eye for cinema. He’d fall asleep halfway through a shoot-out and wake up with a yelp minutes deep into the love scene that followed.

No; Lindsay remembers Jughead climbing out of the trunk in time to catch the start of a Tarantino marathon... it must have been before his tenth birthday. It didn’t hurt him much, she thinks. He got that elsewhere.

A good movie can help. Which doesn’t mean it can’t still burn up in a moment; but Jughead’s a projectionist. Surely he knows that by now.

Well, he’s still a kid. Don’t forget that.

 

5.

Archie has posters on his walls, which seems funny to Jughead when he thinks about it. What does Archie like? He likes football, and Betty, and messing around on the guitar while Jughead’s trying to watch tv, and the tv in Archie’s room is way too ancient to allow them to rewind it to do-over anything they missed the first time.

“Come on, man,” Jughead says. “You’ve got a hit you want to play me, Marty McFly?”

Archie scrunches up his face. Jughead’s stomach swoops a bit. Stupid, stupid. “Nah,” he says. “It’s like...” he drifts off, because how do you tell your friend that you want to write something but you feel like nothing’s really _happened_ to you yet?

Especially when something has happened and you just don’t want to like. Talk about it. Or write songs about it either. He’s not so sure he even feels like he wants to write something.

Maybe he wants to kiss someone.

Mostly he likes messing around.

“You still reading those comics, huh,” Jughead says, a while later. The film’s still playing but Jughead’s lost interest. He often does when it’s Archie’s shitty old CRT tv. _Movies are meant to be seen on the big screen, Archie_. He taps the poster above Archie’s bed.

“Shut up,” Archie says.

Jughead wipes his mouth with his hand and studies the figures on the poster for a while, then taps it again. “I’d like to be this guy,” he says. Archie can’t remember the character’s name. The poster came free with something. He does read comics, but not this one. “Look at those boots.”

“Bet they’re warm,” Archie agrees. “He’s dressed for camping.”

Which is how they get back into low-level arguing about how to make sure their two-day camping trip this summer is the best road trip any teenager has ever had.

 

6.

Jughead doesn’t eat much in the projection booth unless he’s working. He eats burgers cheap at Pop’s mostly because the servers and Pop feel sorry for him (he’ll take it as long as that’s as far as it goes, and also because pity could bring him way worse than cheap food) and Pop’s is open all night, so what’s the point in going home and getting grease on his sheets? Sometimes he’s so tired he finishes the last of his fries on the walk back, and he carefully licks the salt from his fingers before he climbs into bed, and then he drinks water straight from the bottle. He’s good at not spilling it, now.

His laptop has seen better days and there’s no internet at the Twilight because only monsters and heathens get their phones out when a movie’s showing (yes, Archie, that rule counts for outdoor screenings), plus Jughead has no idea how they’d even start to wire the place up for wi-fi since it still doesn’t even have a phone line other than the old pay-phone out back. And actually he feels like that likely doesn’t count since basically people just piss in the booth and the only time it ever rings is for a wrong number or with drunks who sound like they’re giving him a warning from the other side of hell at the end of the line.

His laptop has seen better days, but Pop’s does have wi-fi, and they give him endless cups of (weak) coffee there, and when it’s quiet Jughead doesn’t feel so bad about using it to download whatever he’s decided he’s in the mood for. He’s got a battered external hard drive full of music he’s still not listened to and movies that he’s not seen and yet he finds himself downloading JACKIE BROWN there one night at 11pm, the one pre-INGLORIOUS BASTERDS Tarantino he hasn’t managed to find on celluloid somewhere in the Twilight’s gloomy storage basement.

He’s seen it before, on DVD at -- was it Archie’s house, one weekend when Fred was out working and Archie had opted to stay in rather than go out for baseball or football or whatever it is _jocks_ like to do? -- but it’s been a year at least, and he feels like watching something he knows he’ll like.

He stays out until the download’s finished. It takes way too long, and he spends more money than he really has spare on another slice of pie even though it’s cheap, it’s all cheap, and he goes home with a warm stomach and he curls up in bed with his computer, and he’s fast asleep by the time the opening credits roll.

 

7.

Jughead’s not sure how long the Twilight’s been there. Some say since the 50s, but everything in Riverdale feels like it’s from the 50s -- it’s mostly a lie. Most of the town is a 70s facsimile, trying way too hard to ape the real thing. But the Twilight feels older than most of the rest. Once Jughead found an ancient canister from the mid-40s at the bottom of a stack in the corner of a storage closet, and the film inside hadn’t even started to rot yet. He has two prints of SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN.

He wonders, sometimes, is the Twilight might be actually magic. Like. It must be. What if the feeling that it gives him has become literalised?

He once wrote off to Rian Johnson about nothing in particular and included one of his precious, slightly-crumpled photos of the drive-in (taken long before he started working there) in the envelope, and months later he uncovers a print of _Brick_ underneath films much older, way too old. Rian sends him a letter back with a strip of film from a scene in like, THE BROTHERS BLOOM, and Jughead’s so excited, and he puts on a showing of BRICK even though literally the only other person who cares is Dilton Doiley (who weirds Jughead out in a bad way because _honestly_ ).

Jughead painstakingly writes a review of the experience, and resolves to show it to nobody.

He wonders if Dilton, who somehow always comes top in everything Betty’s not beaten him to, thinks that he’s the Brain. Is it The Brain, or just Brain? Jughead rewatches an illegal download of BRICK instead of sleeping and still isn’t sure (some nights he’s out like a light, some nights he’s up until dawn) but. He knows that if Dilton does think that, if that’s somehow how he identifies, then. Well. He’s wrong.

He’s probably wrong.

The Brain might as well not even exist outside of Joseph Gordon Levitt’s head.

Ha, ha. Get it?

Jughead wears his beanie every day, and the teachers have mostly stopped asking him to take it off. One of them tried to take it off him once, and then none of them ever tried that again -- he doesn’t want them touching it, or him. He doesn’t get to wash his hair much. It’s not easy to do in the PE showers when you’re trying not to let anyone see you. It’s not so easy to wash in Archie’s sink when he’s never invited over there for pizza and bad horror movies anymore.

Jughead does not write poetry. Jughead posts on the Filmspotting message board, and he uses his laptop in his bedroom to carefully add new songs to his old iPod classic, although half the time he’ll play a film podcast through his headphones instead.

Anyway Jughead probably isn’t the brain either. But he knows something about existing through just one tiny lens. Through a fraction of someone else.

They’re closing the Twilight down, and nothing happened to stop it. All he found was dead-ends, and his deadbeat father at the end, a bleak broken light. Of course, of course he had to ruin this too. Maybe the Twilight wasn’t magic; or maybe it used all it had up on giving him a handful of things. Probably that’s enough; he’ll miss it so much anyway.

 

8.

He didn’t like to call it that, but it was his bedroom. A bedroom is a bedroom is a bedroom. A room with a bed in it. A bed and a poster and a glass (or a bottle) of water.

Archie’s bedroom. Posters for comics he doesn’t read, movies he liked as a kid. Curling wallpaper that his dad keeps on at him about replacing, but Archie’s mom picked it out.

Betty’s bedroom, in glimpses from Archie’s window. Too perfect. A cocoon. An image of talcum powder rising like smoke.

What was in Jason’s bedroom? Jughead never got to see. He imagines that it would be revealing. Football gear? Hidden notebooks? Polly’s things? Has Cheryl looked in there? Has Kevin’s dad?

He doesn’t want to think about what _Cheryl’s_ bedroom looks like.

Back when he was living with his dad, Jughead’s room was barely a room; but it had a bed, and so it counted until he stopped going there to sleep.

So much of small towns like Riverdale is about trying to build your own utopia, Jughead thinks. It’s about knocking something shitty down because you think you can replace it with something _better_. More jobs, more money. More life. Jughead doesn’t know much about that, and still feels like the Twilight was worth more than anything else, whatever they’ll build next. But.

What else are bedrooms? Small spaces to build what you want. When you’re young and you don’t have any other space yet. Posters, stacks of old DVDs. Pulling blankets over your head to make the space even smaller.

Bedrooms as spaces to make what you want happen.

He thinks of Archie’s bedroom, only a few months ago. Not summer yet, but it already _felt_ like summer to Jughead, who feels naked in less than three layers of clothes. Archie was still a bit soft, and surprised by the growth spurt he was in the middle of.

He really thought they were going to. You know. _Kiss_. He thought that Archie wanted to. He thought that, maybe... but he was scared, too. And nothing happened.

He thinks of that last fight, furious and quiet, the week after the road trip that wasn’t. Archie grabbing him by the arm, and it was gentle but firm and Jughead felt like he’d been doused in water.

He’s still not sure if he’d misread the signals. He spends a lot of his time. Quietly. Just. Reading... the signals.

(Archie, confused and so sure he just wanted to kiss someone; anyone)

(Archie, who at this point has only kissed Betty when they were kids, and who then kisses Cheryl that summer, once, during a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven, before Miss Grundy but after Jughead lay on his bed, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and Jughead looked at Archie like -- _what?_ )

(This isn’t about Miss Grundy.)

(Archie, months later, who sees Jughead on his porch, hair beautifully curling out from under his beanie, angry and concerned on his behalf. Archie, who thinks with maybe too much pain, too quickly felt -- _what? None of this has anything to do with you anymore._ )

In Jughead’s bag there is a poster for PULP FICTION, another for THE LONG GOODBYE, a copy of ‘In Cold Blood’ that he stole from the school library after Betty mentioned it to him, a photo of him with Jellybean, a letter from Rian Johnson, a couple of changes of clothes... it doesn’t take much to make a bedroom, but mostly it’s there. Mostly, it’s in there.

Jughead doesn’t know where he’s going to sleep tonight, and he doesn’t know how to work it out. Fall is drawing in and it’s not like Riverdale is bursting with fun and exciting opportunities. Not that Jughead feels ready to like. Grab hold of opportunity anyway.

But Pop’s sign is lit and Jughead feels like he really needs an ice cream soda. He shoves his bedroom-in-a-bag under the table and rubs at his eyes. He doesn’t bother even glancing at the menu; he salutes Pop instead, who is watching him with a look that means _don’t think I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you_.

 

9.

Fred Andrews doesn’t demolish buildings with furniture in them. So he dutifully watches Lindsay drive away in her truck, with her idiot dog sticking its head out of the window and dribbling everywhere, and then he gets to work making sure everything that needs to be saved is saved. Everything.

So he finds the bed. Of course he finds the fucking bed.

“Jesus,” he says, and nudges it with his foot. It creaks like a good wind would knock it over.

He knows a kid who looks like that too often these days.

He says to Archie, later that night. “Son, you never did tell me what happened between you and Jughead.”

Archie shakes his head. “Dad, you’ve got it all wrong. We’re friends again. Like nothing ever happened.” He smiles, and his eyes wobble in his stupid guileless face, like he thinks he’s ever fooled anybody in his _entire life_.

Fred shakes his head, a bit sad, mostly wry. Good. “Good,” he says. “I’ve got something to ask.”

 

10.

Jughead finds it hard to write about Riverdale without seeming melodramatic.

Scratch that. Jughead isn’t trying to sound _not_ melodramatic. You might as well lean into it, right? And this is only Sophomore year. Jesus.

The story of Riverdale, Jughead thinks, is of trying to exist somewhere when to you it’s everything and yet you’re nothing. Jughead doesn’t have a car; he can’t go to the multiplex outside Midvale or go on family trips out to the beautiful nature trails in the woods. He hardly ever gets out of town at all.

He sees Archie’s dad come in. It’s late. Fred approaches the counter, hands jammed in pockets. Like he’s picking up takeout he’s already ordered and he’s embarrassed about it. Jughead types that simile out, laboriously. His keyboard is probably jammed with crumbs again. The keys need to be hit hard.

It feels like a long time later. Fred turns around after he exchanges a few words with Hermione. Veronica’s mom, right? He catches Jughead’s eyes -- too easily. Jughead looks back down at his keyboard. But Fred comes over. He doesn’t have takeout. “Mind if I sit?” he says. Fine, Jughead thinks. He found it. I hope he saved the poster.

Jughead didn't regret leaving the poster behind; at this point, what's regret? He's left a lot behind. But it was a rare poster, and he used to see it every night. It probably didn't deserve to be knocked down like it was nothing but airbrick and dust. There was art there.

Jughead blinks. Archie's dad is still waiting for him to reply. Can he sit down? Whatever. “There’s a lot of that lately,” Jughead says, only a little bit sour about it. He gestures to the other side of the booth. “Fine. Step into my office, Mr Andrews.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is for [floggingink](http://floggingink.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, who writes the most fabulous recaps of riverdale and who screeches about jughead with me. i owe you any good ideas (and any muddled ideas are the fault of my silly brain).
> 
> i have not written in a long time and sentences are so hard??? but i love these children.


End file.
